Assisted Highway Lane Changing with RASCL.

Lane changing on highways is stressful. In this paper, we present RASCL, the Robotic Assistance System for Changing Lanes. RASCL combines state-of-the-art sensing and localization tech- niques with an accurate map describing road structure to detect and track other cars, determine whether or not a lane change to either side is safe, and communicate these safety statuses to the user us- ing a variety of audio and visual interfaces. The user can interact with the system through specifying the size of their "comfort zone", engaging the turn signal, or by simply driving across lane dividers. Additionally, RASCL provides speed change recommen- dations that are predicted to turn an unsafe lane change situation into a safe situation and enables communication with other ve- hicles by automatically controlling the turn signal when the driver attempts to change lanes without using the turn signal.